Zugzwang

Quick meaning: Zugzwang is a noun meaning (figurative) A situation in which someone is forced to make a disadvantageous move.

Meaning

(figurative) A situation in which someone is forced to make a disadvantageous move.

More Meanings

1. (chess, transitive) To force (a player) into a situation where they must make a disadvantageous move.
2. (chess) A situation in which a player is forced to make a disadvantageous move; a position where any legal move will worsen a player's situation.

Example Sentences

not only is there a lack of good alternatives concerning some particular policy decisions, but the whole Russian system is moving towards a zugzwang.

the Soviet concessions at Madrid did not prove enough to prevent the stationing of US Euromissiles as part of NATO’s dual-track decision, and Moscow found itself in economic and political Zugzwang at the end of the Andropov era, as Vladislav Zubok has pointed out.

"In chess terms, Putin is not in a stalemate, he's in a zugzwang: He is forced to make further moves even if they worsen his position, precisely because he must keep selling his 'war of civilizations' concept to Russians," Leonid Bershidsky, the self-exiled Russian political analyst wrote in Bloomberg recently.

Here, too, it is Russia that, ironically, is in Zugzwang. Because the central rationale of Moscow's occupation of Crimea was the defense of supposedly threatened Russians, Putin and his minions must continue insisting that Ukraine's Russians are under threat and that their right are being systematically violated.

Word Forms

• zugzwangs
• zugzwanging
• zugzwanged

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include opposition, zwischenschach, zwischenzug, zeitnot, kriegspiel, reflexmate.

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